He and his companions couldn’t afford to be too particular about their accommodations, though. He nodded and said, “We’ll take them. You ladies can have the rooms. Pete and Bart and I will find someplace else to bunk down.”
“I hate for you to have to do that,” Fiona said. “For one thing, I was hoping to have you close by in case of trouble, Frank.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t be far off,” Frank assured her. “I think I spotted a livery stable across the street. We can bed down with the horses.” He smiled. “After all we’ve been through, I reckon that’ll seem almost like the lap of luxury.”
“Yes, but there’s one more thing…” Fiona tugged him aside and whispered, “How are we going to pay for this? All my traveling funds went down with the
“Don’t worry about that,” Frank told her. He reached under his coat and shirt and took out a thin leather wallet. The greenbacks in there had gotten soaked in the various drenchings they had taken, but they hadn’t fallen apart and were dry by now. He slipped a couple of bills out of the wallet.
Fiona smiled. “I thought you told that preacher you didn’t have any money.”
“I don’t have any money for a crooked sky pilot, and I had a hunch that’s what he was. Bart confirmed it.” Frank turned back to the desk and slapped the bills down on it. “That cover the rooms for a few days?”
The clerk scooped them up. “Yes, sir!” He pointed. “Go right through that door over there. They’ll be the third, fourth, and fifth rooms on the left.”
Frank nodded. “Much obliged.”
The next ten minutes were spent carrying in their supplies and arranging for the horses to be stabled across the street. The liveryman was agreeable to letting Frank, Conway, Jennings, and Dog stay with the horses, for an extra price, of course.
The hotel rooms were crude and primitive, with dirt floors, no windows, and only a flap of canvas for a door. The flap could be tied closed, but that wouldn’t keep anybody out who wanted to get in.
“Tell the ladies to keep their pistols handy,” Frank advised Fiona as they stood in the dirt-floored corridor of the hotel’s east wing, just outside the rented rooms. “And if there’s trouble, let out a holler. We’ll be just across the street, so I reckon we’ll be able to hear it.”
“Thank you, Frank.” She put a hand on his arm and rubbed her fingers back and forth on the sleeve of his sheepskin coat. “And thank you for getting us this far. I don’t think there’s another man in the world who could have pulled us through all that trouble.”
“I don’t know about that,” Frank said. “I’m just trying to keep my word to Jacob. As soon as we can figure out what we’ll need, we’ll round up an outfit and set out for Whitehorse.”
“You think we can still make it before winter sets in? Captain Hoffman was wrong about how much time we had left to get here to Skagway.”
“Maybe that storm was just a fluke and there’s still some time. Jennings has been up here for a while. I’ll talk to him about it.”
Fiona frowned at him. “You’d trust that man? He’s an outlaw! He kidnapped us!”
“Yeah, but he seems genuinely grateful that I didn’t kill him. Don’t worry, he’s not the only one I plan to talk to. If we have to, we can wait out the winter here, I suppose.”
“My clients in Whitehorse won’t like that.”
“Better to have a warm wife next spring than a frozen fiancee this winter.”
She looked at him for a second, then laughed. “You do have a way with words, Frank Morgan.” With a sigh and a shake of her head, she went on. “I was hoping we might be able to spend some time together here, just you and me.”
“Maybe when we get back from Whitehorse,” Frank said. “We won’t be able to return to Seattle until spring, so we’ll be spending all winter in Skagway.”
“A long, cold winter…” Fiona mused. “We’ll have to come up with some way to keep warm.”
Frank smiled. “I reckon we’ll manage,” he said.
Chapter 19
Frank had noticed when he went across the street with Conway and Jennings to stable the horses that Salty Stevens was no longer huddled in his furs on the front porch of the hotel. He asked the clerk, “That old-timer who was outside earlier, where can I find him?”
The clerk frowned. “You mean Salty? Did that old beggar bother you, mister? I try to run him off whenever I see him out there. The boss doesn’t like him hanging around the hotel.”
Frank wondered if the boss was Soapy Smith. Smith had been quick to direct them here to the Klondike and might well be the owner of the place.
“No, the old man didn’t bother us,” Frank said in reply to the clerk’s question. “I just want to talk to him. I think we may be from the same part of the country.”
“Oh. In that case…there’s a saloon down the street called Ike’s. I think Salty hangs around there a lot, too, trying to cadge drinks.” The clerk shook his head. “I warn you, though, mister, it’s a pretty squalid place.”
From what Frank had seen so far, most of Skagway fit that description. But he just nodded and said, “All right, thanks.”
As he came out of the hotel, Conway and Jennings emerged from the stable across the street. They had been tending to the horses, or rather Conway had, since Jennings couldn’t see. He was able to stand and hold a saddle, though, if somebody handed it to him.
